ATG Commerce Programming Guide

Customizing Reporting Data

The provided ACI framework supports a wide variety of potential customizations. Customization projects can range in complexity from the very simple, such as adding a single property to an item in a repository, to the elaborate, such as adding support for reporting on an entirely new business process. Depending on the complexity of the data structures you are adding, these customizations may require changes to the following layers of the reporting infrastructure:

Data Collection

Data Loading

Warehouse Schema

Metadata Model

Reports

The examples in this chapter take you through two common and relatively simple examples:

Adding an Attribute to a Dimension. This represents a small expansion of the existing data structures, where you want to report on an attribute that is not represented by default. The example is based on the premise that you have added weight information to your product catalog, and would like to include this in your reports.

Adding a New Dimension. This is a more complex example than the first, and describes how you would go about adding a new data structure on which you can report. The example describes the steps necessary to add shipping information to your reports.

More complicated customization projects involve integrating data from third-party sources, and are therefore not addressed in this document. For example, you may be considering a project that incorporates cost-of-goods data about from a non-ATG system. If you are considering a project of that level, thoroughly review the available ACI documentation, including the chapter on logging and loading components in this guide. Many existing components can be reused or adapted for these circumstances.

Note: This chapter assumes that you are familiar with ACI, with database and dimensional modeling concepts, and with ATG repositories. Many books and Web sites provide information on dimensional modeling and data warehousing. Be sure to perform appropriate research before you begin your customization project if you are new to the subject.